


Fishes of Our Lives

by Crumbs88



Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, Goldfish pr0nz, M/M, MakoHaru kind of but not really, attempted crack?, bad Rei-chan-fish bad, mentions of mpreg, nervous prodigal author returning to the writing fray after forever please be gentle with me, predictably diabolically demonic Nagisa, slice-of-life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-13
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-26 11:05:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/965209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crumbs88/pseuds/Crumbs88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Makoto's goldfish lead an intricate life of sex, lies, betrayal... and cannibalism.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fishes of Our Lives

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in years - but thanks to the soul-destroying love I have for Free! in general and Makoto in particular I've apprehensively dusted off my word processor and I went for it. I started this right after episode 9 came out, and only managed to finish it now, and it could be better, and man, eight days is a lo-o-ong time to labour over ten measly pages. Thanks to that I didn’t edit it as intensively as I usually would have in the past, but hey, I actually wrote something, so I’m pleased.  
> This could probably be labelled gen, but there’s definitely MakoHaru flavouring, mostly friendshippy though, my bad. And also, goldfish-porn ahoy.  
> (Just a warning, English isn't my first language - I'm fluent in it but I haven't written it in ages and I have a tendency to mess up tenses sometimes, le sigh.)

'Those goldfish,' Haruka thinks as his phone vibrates for the seventh time in the morning, 'were a bad idea.'

It had been such a nice feeling at the time: that fuzzy warmth he'd felt when Makoto's face had brightened after he'd confessed that he loved swimming with his team. He'd felt an unfamiliar compunction to make a grand gesture, to heal those past wounds; to see if his eyes could brighten even more - because his eyes that night had made Haruka's heart feel light and squishy and weird. So he'd won him goldfish, four of them, and he'd felt the fuzzy contentment in his heart expand even more, and everything had been light and wonderful as Makoto beamed like a child celebrating his birthday, or a bride on his wedding day. That day had felt like water.

A month later, the fuzzy feelings had somewhat abated and been replaced by a multitude of frantic text messages.

He reaches for the phone anyway, scrolling down to the newest text which is, yup, from Makoto.  
' _smthng wrong with belle his belly all swollen shld i take him to the vet,'_ reads the text. Makoto's text messages in the past month have largely been about his concerns over his fish, and the more worried he becomes, the less inclined he is to use proper capitalisation or punctuation or any grammar whatsoever. It's not like Haru uses capitalisation or proper grammar either, but Makoto usually does. It's easy to gauge his emotional state from the parity of his punctuation marks.

Makoto had emphatically chosen not to give his goldfish the name's Haruka and Nagisa had suggested (Rei's grandiose suggestion that they be named Aldebaran, Altair, Orion and Betelgeuse had also been politely ignored), and in the end Ran had named them all after Disney princesses: Belle, Ariel, Jasmin and, tada, Toothless, who was not a Disney princess but Ran didn’t seem to care about consistency. Makoto had somehow acquiesced to this.

Only Makoto referred to the fishes by their given Disney names though. Nagisa stubbornly insisted on calling them Mako (that was Belle), Haru (Ariel - this seemed to make Nagisa snigger a lot), Nagisa (Jasmin) and Rei (Toothless), and those names had stuck for the rest of them.

There's another phone vibration.

' _taking belle to vet u want to come_.'

_'no,'_ Haru texts, and then sighs and pauses before sending the message.  
Ever since the night of the revelation that his friends meant so much to him, and the subsequent symbolic winning-of-the-goldfish he's been trying to be slightly more socially acceptable. And it's not because he thinks his normal behaviour is wrong. Haru's not dumb, he knows how people are supposed to act in society - you're supposed to say yes to inane goldfish trips to the vet with your friends, and you're supposed to care what second cousin twice removed's auntie Yumiko's kids are going through and why our Satoshi isn't a drug user - but he's never seen the point of stupid customs and sugar-coating words and people-pleasing and doing things that you don't want to do, and particularly preventing yourself from doing what you did want to do, so he never did.

After Squid-festival-gate however, he's implemented two new rules for himself - firstly he’s trying to keep his phone with him - because it's less of a pain than making his friends worry about him. (Mostly he doesn’t keep his phone on him, old habits die hard, but he tries to sometimes. Well, he’d remembered it twice so far, anyway.) And secondly he's allowed to say no to two out of three dumb requests from his friends, but he has to participate in the third. It's a compromise he's set himself to make Makoto and the others happy. So far this week he's already said no to Nagisa's sleepover (the blonde had invited them all to Haruka's house without conferring with Haruka first) and he'd shot down Rei's proposed 'let's build a jigsaw puzzle together' idea (he'd found a jigsaw puzzle of a butterfly and had been absurdly excited about it). So that means this is the third request, and he has to say yes.

At least this is something that shouldn't take much time. He backspaces and replies, ' _okay_ ,' and then sends it.

' _i'll be at your house with belle in 10 min,'_ comes the terse reply, and Haruka shrugs on his shoes and waits on the porch steps lethargically. Friendship takes work. Actually his and Makoto's friendship has rarely ever been an effort, but perhaps that was because Makoto had been the one putting most of the effort in. Haruka didn't think it had ever bothered his friend. Makoto really enjoyed caring for other people, it was a natural reflex to him and he did it instinctively – it was weird - but the happiness he’d radiated on the few occasions Haruka had demonstratively made an effort meant Haru had to stick with his new regime now. Seeing Makoto happy was nice. Seeing all of them happy is nice.

So Haru sits. Presently he is joined by a grey cat that sniffs at his sneakers hesitantly, and then purrs like a tractor and stretches when Haruka scratches under its jaw.

Makoto appears presently, sporting a bag containing two goldfish and an expression of terminal worry. His face softens into a gentle smile when his eyes meet Haruka's though.

" _Ohayo_ Haru-chan."

"You bought two of them," Haru points out, getting up. "Drop the chan."

Makoto seems oddly pleased by this admonition as always, but then his brow furrows and he peers at the goldfish. "Ariel is behaving strangely as well," he confides as if imparting White House classified information. "He keeps chasing Belle around, and usually he's just floating around and ignoring the others, so I thought maybe he was getting sick too."

Haruka peers at the bag, and surely enough, the one called Belle - née Mako-chan-fish - is bloated and large in comparison to Haru-chan-fish/Ariel, who does seem to be intent on chasing the other even in the confines of the bag. Haru/Ariel is moving like a tiny orange rocket, seemingly determined to latch onto Mako/Belle. Neither of them look like they're about to go belly-up, although Haru isn't sure whether a sick fish acts differently than a healthy fish does. He also privately has his reservations about taking goldfish to the vet - but Makoto looks particularly fretful, and what harm can it do?

They take the steps down - Iwatobi's only veterinarian's home is situated only about 500 meters away, near the crossing towards the beach where they always walk to school. It's warm today, but not blistering; the worst of the summer heat seems to be petering out in favour of comfortable warm weather and breezes.

Makoto is worrying about the goldfish and the heat, "They're not supposed to be exposed to very warm temperatures are they?" and Haru stares at the approaching edge of sea he can glimpse behind the town buildings. Admittedly, he's not listening to Makoto, but he's still enjoying the sound of his voice; there's something about Makoto's warm tenor that soothes Haru, perhaps because he's so used to it.

Makoto stops worrying for a moment when they stop in front of the vet's home and he smiles warmly. "Thanks Haru," he says.

"For what?"

"For coming with me."

Haruka nods placidly, and determines inwardly that he has probably made the right decision in coming along, and then they open the door and enter the veterinarian’s house.

There's a vaguely familiar old couple sitting in the waiting area with an equally old Maltese poodle sitting at their feet, and also a young man with a parrot. Haruka gives the inhabitants a cursory glance, but Makoto greets the old couple warmly.

"Shiyozaki-san, Chitose-san," he says, giving a little bow, and the wrinkly old people and the equally decrepit Maltese poodle all seem to brighten.

"Makoto-chan," the woman says, voice cracked and shaky with age, "Thank you so much for your help in the garden last week." Makoto waves this off, beaming, and then turns to the dog.

"Is Pom-pom alright?" Makoto is genuinely concerned about the dog; it radiates out of his every pore.

Haruka decides to tune this out and selects a seat furthest away from the couple and the young man, in front of the fish tank, dimly hearing Makoto take his leave from the old people and making an appointment to see the vet with the receptionist. The place smells a little of dogs and disinfectant - not a thoroughly unpleasant smell, but he'd prefer the smell of grilled mackerel or the salty tang of the sea air just outside the house. He cranes his neck backwards and stares at the fish in the tank thoughtfully for a while until his neck feels uncomfortable, vaguely aware that the man with the parrot is talking to Makoto now. He only hears snippets of the conversation.

"Hai, I'm new in the area... Sawada-san, pleased to meet you Tachibana-chan... Ah, this is Zoro, he's been sick for a while now; usually he's very lively and noisy. Say hello to Tachibana-chan Zoro, he has nice eyes doesn't he?" ‘Bwaark,’ goes the parrot obligingly.

Haruka has unconsciously been engaging in a staring competition with the ancient Maltese poodle, looking at it without meaning to whilst listening to the man's awkward attempts at flirting with Makoto boredly. (Makoto is predictably oblivious). He only realises the Maltese is staring back with secretive urgency when it finally breaks eye contact, throws it’s head back and utters the most dreadfully mournful howl. He starts; Makoto jumps about three feet into the air and the young man he's been politely talking to's parrot starts screeching and bobbing its head up and down frantically.

The eldrich howl of the dog - Pom-pom was it? - seems to be a signal of some sort to Makoto, he says goodbye to the parrot man, and he comes to take his seat next to Haruka, clutching his goldfish bag.

There's silence for a while and then Makoto says, "If Ariel and Belle are okay we could go swimming after lunch," and now Haruka knows this outing is absolutely worth it.

* * *

They presently do get to see the vet, Yamamoto-san, who greets them both warmly. "Ah, Makoto-chan and Haruka-san, what brings you here? Got a cat for me?" He's grey haired, slightly stooped and reminds Haruka of Albert Einstein a little bit, perhaps because of the startled arch of his brows and his white moustache. Haruka knows the old man well, he's delivered many a hurt stray cat to him through the years and he bows obligingly while Makoto exchanges formalities about the weather and his parents.

"You know Makoto-chan, vets don't usually specialise in fish," Yamamoto-san finally says with a twinkly smile, and Makoto looks crestfallen. "But I'll take a look."

He peers at the bag intently for all of about three seconds and then chuckles.  
Makoto looks slightly hopeful at this, after all, most people don't usually laugh when they're delivering news about an impending death or terrible sickness.

"Congratulations, son," the vet grins, and pats Makoto on the soldier. "Your fish isn't sick. She's going to lay eggs soon."

Makoto's too expressive face reacts, jaw slack, eyes unbelieving. "Belle's pregnant?"

"Fish don't get pregnant," the vet says, still chortling. "The female lays eggs, and the male fertilises it."

Makoto looks as if he doesn't know whether to be happy or worried. "And Ariel? What's wrong with her?"

"Her? He," Yamamoto-san emphasises, and Makoto blushes, "He is her mate. He's chasing after her because he knows she's in heat, so to speak. Completely normal."

Makoto's face is awfully red, Haruka isn't sure whether he's embarrassed that Ariel/Haru is male, or whether he's embarrassed that his fish are promiscuous and have copulated, or whether he's simply happy to expand his fish family. Most likely it's all of the above.

"I saw him on her a few days ago, in the morning," he mumbles, cheeks reddening even more, probably at the realisation that he was privy to fish-sex. "I didn't realise..."

Haruka has to hide a smile - at least he's very good at doing that; Yamamoto-san doesn't, he guffaws. "They've ruined your innocence then, have they?" he jokes, and now Makoto's ears are red too. "It's the circle of life Tachibana-kun. Birds do it, bees do it, rabbits do it a hell of a lot; and your fish do it too, haha. Anyhow, your fish are hale and hearty and healthy, and you have nothing to worry about."

They're ushered out of the vet's office promising to send regards to parents and to let Yamamoto-san know when the eggs hatch.

Out in the fresh air Makoto still seems a little flustered and thoughtfully apprehensive - no doubt pondering being a grandparent so soon - but he finally brightens a little at the foot of the steps towards the shrine and their respective houses.

"If the fish hatch, would you like some?" he asks.

Haruka's inclined to say no, looking after fish is troublesome, and he has a persistent inkling that Makoto will overbearingly mother his own fish as well, but he shrugs instead. "Maybe one," he allows, and starts up the steps.

He pauses near the door of Makoto's home, because he can see a blonde boy standing on the steps adjacent to his own home from here. It's Nagisa, and he hasn't noticed them approaching and is fervently and repeatedly poking at the button of the Nanase residence's doorbell.

Haru briefly considers hiding - he was planning on rewarding himself for going on this stupid outing by soaking in the tub, and the appearance of Nagisa means that possibility is slim. He's almost about to knock Makoto sideways into a bush to help with the subterfuge, but he's too late, Makoto has noticed Nagisa, and he waves enthusiastically. "Nagisa!"

"Haru-chan! Mako-chan!" Nagisa sprints down the steps to join them, grinning widely and waving as if he's on television.

"Nagisa! What are you doing here?"

"I came to see if Haru-chan wanted to go spy on Rin-chan with me," Nagisa says sunnily, and Haruka scowls on reflex.

"Why would you come all the way here to ask me to do something like that?"

"But Haru-chan, I heard that Rin-chan shaves his legs on Saturdays!" Nagisa enthuses. "We have to go see it, it'll be _great._ I wanted to ask Mako-chan too of course. Anyway, I did text you, but you didn't reply as usual," and he pouts. Nagisa is adept at the 'pout', he could give master-classes in the art of pouting, but Haruka is completely immune to it and ignores it.

He slaps his jean pocket. Oh. His phone really isn't with him, obviously he has to work on the rules a bit more.

"Let's go see Rin-chan shave!" Nagisa says with a flashy wink, throwing his arms up in the air like he's an MTV reject about to start break-dancing.

"No," Haruka grumbles, not even bothering to pour all his ire into the word.

Nagisa doesn't seem deterred by the flat-out rejection, probably ready to launch into another surprise tactic any second, Haruka surmises, keeping his guard up and eyeing him with defensive suspicion, but thankfully the bag in Makoto’s hand distracts him.

"Ooh, it's Haru-chan-fish and Makobelle-fish!" he exclaims, peering at them brightly. "Are you taking them for a walk? Mako-chan-fish is getting a bit fat, isn't he?"

"It's Belle and Ariel," Makoto says with an unhappy attempt at a smile. Haruka isn't sure why he's even bothering to assert their names, it's completely futile. And then perhaps unwisely Makoto adds, "We took them to the vet, Belle is pregnant."

"Mako-chan is pregnant!" Nagisa yelps ecstatically, and Makoto's blush returns full force. It's cute.

"Not Mako-chan, Belle, and she's not really pregnant, she's..." he starts softly and resignedly, but Nagisa is undeterred.

"Ooh, so he's a she. Who's the daddy?"

Haruka can't help himself, he gives a tiny smirk and deadpans, "Haru-chan is the daddy."

It's worth it to see the absolute mortification on Makoto's face. He looks like a candy apple, a red one. "Haru," he whines. It's not like Haruka enjoys making his friend unhappy really, but sometimes he does like to see Makoto's flustered face.

Nagisa crows in delight, voice loud enough to be heard throughout Iwatobi. "Haru-chan got Mako-chan pregnant! Can I have one of the babies?"

Makoto hangs his head.

Haruka glances at the bag and blandly says, "They're having sex again." Well, Haru-chan-fish is on top of Mako-chan-fish anyway. Neither of them seem particularly happy about it, in fact Mako-chan-fish makes a bored looking 'blup' right as Nagisa stares at them. Makoto is fearfully peeking at them through splayed fingers, and Haruka has to fight the inexplicable urge to smile again.

"Public sex!" says Nagisa happily and randomly, and punches a fist in the air. Makoto drops the hand covering his face to stare at him in astonishment; apparently Nagisa is a public-sex cheerleader, and is thoroughly unashamed of the fact. "You know," he says thoughtfully, wide red eyes studying the bag of copulating goldfish with intense concentration, "Haru-chan-fish doesn't seem to be satisfying Mako-chan-fish. Mako-chan-fish looks kind of annoyed and bored.' He grins and yells at the bag. "Try harder Haru-chan-fish! You can do it!"

"Lies," says Haruka calmly. "Haru-chan-fish is a stud."

Makoto looks as if he wishes the earth would swallow him up and Haruka privately wonders if he'll ever retain his normal light olive complexion.

He rallies well after a few seconds though, and deftly attempts to change the subject. "Haru and I want to go swimming after lunch at my house," he says, smiling at Nagisa, cheeks still slightly pink. "Do you want to join us? My mum is making lots of food, it should be fine."

'Well-played for now,' Haruka thinks, but Makoto's naive if he thinks a little misdirection will make Nagisa forget about his goldfish soap opera.

"That sounds nice. We can watch Rin-chan shave next week then," Nagisa says agreeably, and Makoto tactfully ducks his head to avoid replying. "Should we invite Rei-chan to the pool? He'll be all stroppy if we did stuff without him. Hmm, and then maybe we can have yakiniku for dinner, I saved up so I can treat you all!" He's already texting without waiting for their response.

"Hmm," Makoto smiles, "Sounds good."

Haruka sighs inwardly. A day of planned lolling in the tub has turned into a day ferreting goldfish to the vet has turned into spending the whole day with other people, it seems.  
'Well, it's all right,' he thinks as Makoto graces him with one of his soft, special smiles. There'll be swimming. And there'll be his friends, and Makoto and his family, and very well-cooked mackerel - Mrs Tachibana is always thoughtful that way.

...And after this he can spend the whole of tomorrow in the tub and completely ignore his phone. He deserves it.

* * *

Predictably, Haruka doesn’t get to ignore his phone the next day.

In fact he isn't even particularly surprised when he's woken up the next morning by a barrage of text messages and a constantly vibrating phone, indicating that it’s ringing frantically.

‘Should have just switched it off last night,’ he muses, eyeing the blue-green smart-phone mistrustfully as it settles down for a few seconds, and then the vibrating starts up again and it jerks around on his desk like a flopping cuttlefish.

He swings his legs over the bed, walks past the phone deliberately without even glancing at it and makes a beeline for the tub. Something is obviously going on, because the phone has been rattling non-stop since 6am, in fact the rattling served to lull Haru back to sleep two hours ago – even Makoto in full-fledged panic wouldn’t be so persistent so early. But water comes first.

He takes his time in the tub, listlessly thinking about yesterday, about Rei and Nagisa, and the Tachibana family, and about warmth. And then he thinks of dolphins for another half hour. Contrary to popular belief, Haruka can get out of the bath tub without Makoto’s help, and he does so when the water becomes tepid. It’s tempting to run more hot water and stay there, but he exercises self-control.

Then it’s time for mackerel of course, and he doesn’t rush that either, cooking it to perfection, eating it carefully, and then meticulously scrubbing the grill and drying the dishes. When he’s done he sighs.

It’s time to attend to the phone.

It’s still rattling around when he re-enters his bedroom, bouncing like a tiny dancer, but it stops as he picks it up. The messages are not all from Makoto. Nor are the missed calls – and there are 24 of them, and seventeen texts.

There’s only one message from Makoto, sent about twenty minutes ago. It’s the only one he opens for the moment, and it says, _‘haru ;_; check facebook._ ’ The other messages and calls are from an assortment of people, almost everyone he’s ever known really – Rei, Rin, Ren, Ran (he knows a lot of people with R-names, hmm) Kou, Amakata-sensei, coach Goro and hmm well, he doesn’t know a lot of people, that’s it. One name is conspicuously absent from the caller list, Nagisa. Hmm, Haru thinks, thoughtfully rubbing his chin, ‘the plot thickens.’

He can sort of guess what happened; he’d considered the possibility of it happening yesterday already, but it’s still a little surprising when he navigates to Facebook and he sees Nagisa’s proud message tagging ‘Nanase Haruka’ and ‘Tachibana Makoto.’

' _Congratulations to Mako-chan for getting pregnant, and to proud daddy Haru-chan :DDDD !!_ ' says the message, engineered to deceive and create chaos, and yet not entirely a lie. Haruka sighs and scrolls down. There are 175 comments and 812 likes. Haru only has 12 Facebook friends, and the only one who has ever commented on the few pictures of pools Haruka had posted on his profile initially was Makoto. (He’d stopped posting pictures after a while, it was more aesthetically pleasing to post them on Pinterest, even though the only one who liked his comments there was Makoto as well.)

Predictably the majority of the comments – most from people completely unknown to Haru - are along the lines of ‘ _nagisa you troll, men can’t get pregnant,’_ but there are a few ‘ _Congratulations you two! Such a cute couple @_@!_!’ messages, mostly from girls; and even more, ‘ _Ah, I know they can’t get pregnant but they’re so cuuute together :DD.’_

There’s Rin's. ' _Wtf Haru? Wtf???_ '

Kou sounds alarmed. ' _Did you really make Makoto-senpai pregnant? Nagisa said so! I called him and he insists it's true. He says it’s a miracle. Answer me Haruka-senpai. Is Makoto-senpai okay? Is it true? Did you really do it?_ '

Rei's matter-of-fact and in denial. _'I'm assuming that what Nagisa-kun told me is a blatant lie. It's medically impossible for men to make other men pregnant. Even if you are copulating with Makoto-senpai I refuse to believe Nagisa's insistence that 'Mako-chan is pregnant.' If, however, you have created a modern-day miracle, I wish you the best and congratulations on your parenthood. However, I should advice you that teenage pregnancies need assistance from professionals, this is a help-line number 0800 650 3475._ '

‘ _Wat were you boys thinking reeginals are only a week away where will I get another backstroke swimmer’_ coach Goro sounds furious, but he has added a vaguely embarrassed looking ‘ _nvm’_ to his comment five minutes later. There's hearty, back-slapping congratulations from Mikoshiba Seijuuro the Samezuka captain on behalf of the whole swim team, but he adds, ‘ _too bad Mako won’t be able to swim srsly from now on but relaxing swimming is totes gd 4 preggie moms!!! : >D’_ and then there’s even one from that first year in school that has been stalking Makoto (who hasn’t noticed his stalkee), ' _Haruka-senpai, you bastard!_ ' it says.

There's probably something wrong with him after all, Haruka thinks, because he wants to laugh as he stares at the Facebook screen.

But then he sobers, because there’s nothing there from Makoto. Makoto isn’t laughing about this, he realises. Makoto is too embarrassed to even deny it in a comment, or even to pretend to laugh it off like he usually would. Makoto isn’t even barraging Haruka’s phone with text messages.

Makoto has a family and a squishy-soft heart and a squeaky-clean reputation and Makoto is not a troll, he has no troll in him whatsoever – and most of the world have troll blood in them, Haruka knows, even if it’s just a tiny percentage of it. Most have an edge, a tiny bit of malice or cruelty that can make them laugh at things that are a little dark and a little wrong and maybe a little hurtful, and it’s this edge that can protect them like a hard shell too, that can make them tough. But his best friend is one of the very few pure humans with not even a trace percentage of troll, and Makoto has no hard protective shell, Makoto is a soft squishy unprotected sea-whelk (better looking than a sea-whelk though), so this is not okay.

(…He’s definitely mixing up his metaphors a lot, Rei would disapprove.)

It's not that he thinks Makoto is weak. But this is not a battle Makoto is meant to fight. He might get tainted, and it's Haruka's job to see to it that Makoto does not become a troll. There are enough trolls in the world.

Haruka tries to contemplate a plan of action – make Nagisa stop? Deny it himself? Ignore it all and go back to the tub? No, he knows what to do.

He dials Makoto’s number.

It’s a few rings before he picks up, and that’s telling – Makoto usually picks up instantly. Mind you, Haruka can count the times he’s called Makoto on his fingers, it’s always Makoto calling him.

“Haru,” it’s an unhappy whine that says everything, and Haruka half-wishes he were next to him so that he could – gingerly pat his back or something, or hug him awkwardly… or maybe not, he's never been physically expressive and he might just startle Makoto if he did something like that.

"It's okay," Haruka assures him. "Nagisa will fix it. We'll make him fix it. Otherwise we kill him. I’ll kill him."

"Really Haru?"

"Really. I'm thinking drowning, or poisoning his pizza, or maybe we'll frame him for murder," Haruka says comfortingly.

"Okay," says Makoto, apparently not overly squeamish about abandoning his normal 'do no harm' persona.

"Okay," says Haruka, mentally giving Makoto a hug anyway. It feels nice, mentally. “Okay.”

* * *

  
-Epilogue-

Nagisa does fix it and avoids a grisly death. Makoto's pristine reputation remains intact. Mako-chan-fish lays her eggs, and everything returns to normal until the baby fish hatch and Rei-chan-fish eats most of them.

**Author's Note:**

> (Yup, my author’s notes are about the same length as the fic, I have a thing for writing author’s notes, always have done, this might be a sign of self-absorption and conceitedness, dunno, dun care, I like dem author’s notes, I can author’s note a-all night long :D Anyway, do not feel compelled to read this, I write these for my own benefit and weird enjoyment. You have been duly warned.) 
> 
> Re-fish names: *Belle, Ariel and Jasmin are Disney heroines hailing from Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid and Aladdin respectively. Just putting it up here so that I can pretend to have footnotes, footnotes are totes kewl. Toothless is of course the protagonist dragon from How to Train your Dragon. And nope, didn’t have any particular coherent reason for giving them these names, except the black Rei-chan fish does resemble Toothless maybe, and the irony of calling Haru-chan-fish Ariel was perhaps a factor too. (If ever two protagonists were opposite, it’s these two: Ariel dreams of being Haru, Haru dreams of being Ariel, they would never understand each other, ever).
> 
> Re-Fic name: *Is a reference to the soap opera Days of Our Lives. It was between that or All My Fishes, (reference to All My Children) but I’ve never watched that and Days is excellent crack, so it won.
> 
> Re-goldfish procreation: *Goldfish, apparently, do not get pregnant; the female lays eggs and the male fertilises them. I looked that up for the fic because I vaguely remembered something like that from biology, and lo and behold, it's true. But female goldfish often become bigger (and sometimes their colours brighten up) before egg laying is due, and apparently the male 'chases her' at this time, according to the site I skimmed. I don't know if there's any actual porn involved in real goldfish procreation - biology was a long time ago dammit, and my own abysmal failure at keeping fish when I was seven ensured that none of them ever got to the egg laying or even the procreating stage - I'm no Makoto, they died pretty damn quick  - but these fic-fishies are a little promiscuous and do get it on.  
> (And yup, fish do eat their babies D:)
> 
> Re: The ending: Is too abrupt. I know. I guess I wanted to end it on Haruka reaching out, not on them threatening Nagisa and not on Rei-chan-fish the cannibal. Idk, could have executed it better, but I’m just so thrilled that I wrote and actually finished a fic. I’ll try my best to do better next time.


End file.
